RIL Group deals account for 45% of $26.3 bn PE-VC investments

The $12.1 billion invested by global private equity and sovereign wealth funds in Reliance Industries` Jio Platforms ($ 9.9 billion) and Reliance Retail ($ 2.3 billion) accounted for 45 per cent of the total PE-VC investment value in 2020, according to data from Venture Intelligence, a research service focused on private company financials, transactions and their valuations.

This figure excludes the $10.2 billion in strategic investments by Silicon Valley tech giants Google and Facebook.

The Reliance deals have managed to arrest the overall decline in PE-VC investment figures in 2020 to a marginal two per cent, compared to $27.4 Billion (across 750 deals) in the first nine months of 2019.

See Zee Business Live TV streaming below:

With the mega investments in Reliance Jio coming to a pause, PE-VC investments in July-September 2020 (Q3`20) - $7 billion across 168 deals - fell 48 per cent compared to the immediate previous quarter (which saw $13.6 billion across a similar number of deals) and 33 per cent compared to the same period last year ($10.5 billion across 232 deals).

Private Equity - Venture Capital (PE-VC) firms invested $26.3 billion (across 547 deals) in the first nine months of 2020.

Apart from the investments in Reliance Group, top investments in Q3`20 include the stressed assets investment by Varde Partners and Goldman Sachs in coal-based power plant operator RattanIndia Power ($567 million), the coming through of the $507 million investment in Oyo Rooms from SoftBank (as a part of its ongoing $1.5 billion round), and the $500 Million investment by EQT and Temasek in renewable energy platform O2 Power.

Venture Capital investments fell 18 per cent in value (and 26 per cent by volume) in the 9 months ended September 2020 ($6.5 billion across 438 deals) compared to the same period last year ($7.9 billion in 594 deals).

The latest quarter however showed green shoots in the VC segment with both foreign (especially US headquartered funds) and India-dedicated funds venturing out to invest $2 billion across 137 deals - up from the $1.4 billion across 134 deals in the immediate previous quarter.

Venture Capital is defined as investments in startups less than ten years old.

Led by Jio, telecom accounted for $10.2 billion of the investment pie during the first nine months of 2020. Bharti Airtel`s data center focused subsidiary Nxtra Data and smartphone manufacturer Lava International chipped in with $235 million and $90 million, respectively.

IT & ITeS companies came in next, attracting $5.2 Billion - a 43 per cent fall from the $9.1 billion raised during the same period last year. The industry however witnessed a slew of big ticket investments in the latest quarter - including Zomato`s $250 million investment from Kora Management, Tiger Global and Temasek and fantasy sports platform Dream11`s $225 million raise from TPG Capital, Tiger Global, ChrysCapital and other investors.

The SoftBank led $150 million investment in Edtech platform Unacademy created India`s 31st Unicorn and the fourth Unicorn startup minted this year (following Pine Labs, Nykaa and Postman).